Settling In

We are back in Taji for another night before going out again.  I am starting to adjust to the schedule and the life and the people that I work with.  I got a new truck commander before this mission, and it is working out really well.  He likes to yell, but I am used to yelling coming from my family!  Like us, he gets excited, but doesn't take it personal and five minutes later it's like nothing happened.  It makes the job easier.  Our driver, who is 18 from Boyd, TX, is still getting used to driving such a big truck.  He has never driven anything like it before.  He is just out of basic training, and his job training did not include driving at all.  I really don't know why he is our driver when my job in the army is supposed to be driving trucks, but he is and we are teaching him the best we can.  When we are done he will be the best driver in the company.  Now that our truck is running so smoothly there is talk of making us the lead scout.  That would be cool, but a huge responsibility, especially for me.  I would be the eyes of the convoy making sure there is nothing dangerous in our path.  It calls for good eyes!  We'll see what happens.

I had a great time yesterday after our trip to Baghdad.  We found the 24 hour MWR (rec center) and played pool and ping-pong all night.  I fared well against the other guys.  We had a good time together and are starting to come together as a group.  It's fun making fun of my driver who is not only young and inexperienced but is only about 5' tall.  Maybe 5' 1"!  He knows we love him.

So far we have been safe on our missions.  That will most likely be the case.  The company we replaced told us that they only had a handful of incidents and all of them consisted of pot shots from people that they couldn't even see.  We are well protected from gunfire in our armored monsters.  We just keep rolling like nothing happened.  There is always the possibility of more, so we keep ourselves ready and alert.  This trip was the best so far with no stops for broken vehicles or any problems.  We are all getting better at our jobs.  

Well, there is more work to be done to prepare my truck for our next trip, and I want to get it done before the Cowboy's game!  

 

Winter in Iraq

I am in the middle of a mission, but I get to spend every couple of nights in my own bed as we pass this way.  We are busy helping our logistics guys move equipment around.  We never know why and often don't know what we are helping to transport, but we make sure that they truck drivers get there and back safely.  We escort all types of cargo from civilian contractors to army convoys.  

I have been back to Baghdad since my last post and spent some time there.  We get to know all of the posts around us because we will eventually spend as much time in them as we will in our own.  When I am "home" I spend my time in my room on the internet or watching movies, but on the road we sleep in tents on cots so we are more likely to go out to the rec rooms and shops that they have set up for the soldiers.  Last night I watched "Iron Man" on a big screen TV sitting on a really soft leather chair in a rec center.  We are awake at night, so we had the place to ourselves early in the morning when everyone else on post was asleep.  It was fun.

Winter has started here in Iraq.  It is near freezing every night and will stay this way for a few months.  People are surprised to learn that Iraq is at a similar latitude as Texas, and other than being incredibly dry has the same seasons as Texas.  It gets as cold here as it does there.  It warms up to comfortable temperature during the day, but I am asleep and only feel the cold of the night.  As a gunner I get to feel it while driving down the road.  All my years riding motorcycles in the cold has helped prepare me for what it's like up in that turret.  The army provides some pretty nice clothing though to help keep me warm.  It's funny though.  You know who the gunners are because they are the ones with multiple layers of clothing on and thick gloves.  The drivers and truck commanders get to sit in heated cabs so they just wear their ordinary uniform with a jacket that they can take off before getting into the truck.  In the summer they will be the ones in the air conditioning while the gunners get to sweat up in the hatch with all their gear on!  

I am getting lots of Christmas cards from everyone.  It is nice to get them all, even the ones from distant relatives on Julie's side of the family that I don't know to well.  It is nice to know that people are thinking about me.  I'm glad that I could come do something so important in my life and for the support that I am getting from everyone.  It's funny, I served a mission in the jungles of South America and now I am serving my country in the deserts of the Middle East.  Two totally different battles in two totally different environments.  What an amazing life I have had!

Murphy

We just finished one of the longest missions I could imagine without anyone getting hurt.  It was supposed to be a five hour mission and turned into a 12 your mission when everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  

First it started with my crew having to trade trucks with another crew because our truck does not have enough armor to go through the neighborhood where our mission took us.  We did not know what truck we were going to use until two hours before the mission and we had to work like mad to get it ready for us.  We didn't have time to take the other crew's equipment out of the truck before we left so we just put ours in and left.  

On the way to our destination our lead truck made a wrong turn.  That happens sometimes, especially on a route that we have not been on before, so it was no big deal.  It became a big deal when he got stuck in the mud while trying to turn around!  He got so stuck that it took two trucks and a couple of hours to get him unstuck.  We were now two hours behind schedule, but back on the road.

As we entered the base at our destination I had to unload or clear my .50 cal.  Something broke inside, and it became inoperable.  I worked on it for a while, but had to give up as we were turning around as quickly as possible because we were late.  It was good that we left the original crew's equipment in their truck because I had their .50 cal in reserve.  I wrestled mine out of the turret and mounted theirs and we continued the mission.  

So far: truck stuck in the mud and broken weapon

We started back just within our allowed window to start missions so that we only run in the dark.  We could just make it back as the sun would be rising.  That was until about two miles down the road until the lugs on our truck's right rear tire sheared off and we lost the wheel in the middle of the street!  Our wheel fell off.  It took another two hours to get my truck on the back of one of the empty HETTS (used to transport heavy equipment like MRAPS and tanks) that we fortunately had available and continue the mission.  I had to unmount the .50 cal that I had just mounted and finished the mission in the back of another truck.  By this time the sun was up and we had to contend with traffic in broad daylight in Sadr City.  At least I got to see Baghdad in the daytime.  

Oh, it's not over.

Next a trucks radio jamming equipment went down.  That is used to stop radio controlled IEDs.  We didn't have to stop, just adjust our convoy order.  

Then one of our drivers ran into another truck with his rhino.  Thats a heater box that sticks out in front of the truck to trigger heat activated IEDs in front of the truck instead of on the truck.  He bent it! 

Finally, we got back home.  Final tally: Truck stuck in the mud, broken weapon, broken truck, broken jammer, broken rhino, and a daylight drive through Sadr City.

I still had to help recover all the gear, from both crews, out of the broken truck so it could be taken to maintenance before I was able to go to bed.  I am still tired, but we all got back safe and we got the cargo delivered so it was a good mission.

I hope they don't all go like that!

First Mission

I finally made it to Iraq!  It is quite a trip to get here.  We left Fort Stewart on a charter plane and flew to Kuwait City with stops in Bangor, Maine, and Shannon, Ireland.  We stayed in Kuwait for two weeks doing a little training and getting our bodies acclimated to the new time and new environment.  Then we took a military transport to Baghdad where we were supposed to take helicopters to our final destination, Camp Taji just north of the city.  The helicopters weren't expecting us so after a wait of a couple of days at a camp outside of the Baghdad international airport we convoyed the 15 miles to Taji.  Once here we moved into our new rooms (yes, we each get our own room) and started training with the company that we eventually replaced.  We run all our missions at night, so after getting our bodies used to the new schedule in Kuwait, we had to revert back to a schedule almost the same as when we were in the United States.  Then we started our missions.

My first mission was a week ago.  I had never been "outside the wire" before, other than to get here from the airport and I had to get into the hatch and man my machine gun and do everything that I was supposed to do without anyone to show me what to do.  Mainly I just imitated what I saw other people doing.  It's a tough job being a gunner in a Gun Truck.  You have to man your gun, spotlight suspicious objects with a handheld spotlight, mark suspicious objects with chemlights, and do all this while being bucked like a bull rider on top of a huge truck going down war torn roads at 35 mph.  It is physically demanding.  The driver and truck commander just sit and watch!

I have to admit that I haven't really been scared yet.  I think that's because I am so busy up there that I don't have time to think about it.  It's also a tribute to the training, that it just seems like one more training exercise just like the ones that we were doing in Georgia.  The only difference this time is that I have live rounds in my gun and our equipment is way better.  I hope nothing happens to make me realize how dangerous it really is to do what I am doing.  People die every night out there.  So far, luckily, we haven't seen anything, and from what the outgoing company told us that is what we should expect for most of the time.  

Our last mission was what we call a barrier mission.  We escort trucks carrying concrete barriers to Sadr City in Baghdad (the most dangerous place in Iraq) and guard them while cranes replace old road barriers with the new ones.  We sit there for four or five hours until they are done and then escort them back.  So far pretty boring stuff.  Although no one shot at us!  That would make things more exciting.  

LEAVE!

I am on leave for four days before heading overseas and not seeing my family for another four months.  Julie and the boys (and my parents) came to Savannah to help me relax.  I was so glad to get to see Julie again.  I miss her most of all.  Savannah is a great city.  I have wanted to see it for a long time.  There is a lot written about it in city planning circles and I have wanted to see how special it is for myself.  It hasn't disappointed.  In fact the longer I am here the more I am falling in love with it.  I have one more day to just go downtown and relax and enjoy it with my family.  We'll just find a park and sit and play and have a pic-nick and then walk around enjoying all the shops and old houses.  

So far we have been to the beach, seen Fort Pulaski, toured a tall ship, eaten lots of good seafood, and taken a side trip to Atlanta to send my parents home and to fix my iPod.  It has been a good vacation and although I didn't get to go home and sleep in my own bed, it has been good for me.  

Training's Over

Well it seemed like it would never happen, but our training is finally over and our company has been validated as combat ready. We are set to ship out to Kuwait in just a couple of weeks, the political situation not withstanding, and are just basically sitting around waiting for that to happen. It's nice to have a break from around the clock training. We even started a spades tournament!

Fort Stewart

I've been training now at Fort Stewart, Ga for the past month now.  We are about half way through our time here.  It is amazing that we only have two months to get ready for deployment to a combat zone.  We have learned a lot, and the schedule has been difficult.  We also have a lot of veterans from previous deployments that help out a lot.  We have learned how to operate our trucks as a team and how to fire on the move from our trucks.  We have learned how to fire by ourselves and with our convoys.  I have also learned how to operate a lot of different equipment and weapons.  One interesting thing that I learned yesterday was how to give an IV to a patient.  I had to administer one to my squad leader and he gave one to me.  It was a little nerve wracking, but I did it right on the first try (to the relief of my squad leader).  I don't like people sticking needles in my, but I really don't like sticking them in other people.  

I am doing ok.  It is hard being away from home and Julie and the boys.  I am starting to cope better and better.  Now, however, as we get close to the end of training, I'm starting to get a little nervous about where I am going.  In just over a month I will be in Kuwait!